GOD AND LITTLE CHILDREN.

А РОЕМ,

Written for the Semi-Centennial Celebration of the Sabbath Schools in Beverly.

"I love God and little children."

-Jean Paul Richter.

The flowers of the field and the gems of the mine,
The pearls of the deep, and the stars in the sky,
May be brilliant and beauteous, but not so divine
As the dear little children born never to die.
God's hand we behold in the tints blossoms wear,
As they deck earth with beauty, and gladden our eyes;
But nor spangled midnight, nor flowers may declare
So well as dear children, our God in the skies.

He knew this who blessed them, and said, " Evermore,
Oh suffer the children to come unto me!"
For the glorified host on eternity's shore

Are like little children in innocency.

In heaven their angels forever behold

His face whose bright glory no prophet could bear— That heart, like a glacier, must ever be cold,

Which could wish for a heaven no infant could share.

We love them who gather among them to-day,

And greet their gay banners, and faces so bright, Rejoicing that none need to falter or stray

In their path through this world to the region of light. We celebrate now an historic event:

Here first children gathered-a Sabbath School band! We proudly rejoice that from this village went

A voice for the Sabbath School, through our fair land.

The women-God-honored!—who gathered them first
In the school of the Sabbath to learn of its Lord,
Saw the bud of bright promise to full beauty burst,
And then "went up higher" to their reward.

Be their mem❜ry still cherished while children are found
Life's alphabet conning in innocent glee!
May their spirit of faithfulness ever abound,
With all who the teachers of children may

This day a new motto we'll take as our own

be.

175

"Little children and God!""little children and God!” And pray that our pathways on earth may be known By the flowers that we plant along infancy's road. And then when our toil in this life shall be o'er, All our labors in Sabbath School faithfully done, Life crowned, and rejoicing, we'll sing evermore,

"All praise to that Savior through whom we have won!"

MRS. J. H. HANAFORD.

INFLUENCE.

Far in the distant years some deed of beauty,
Hath struck the key-note of a bold refrain,
And many a noble act and high-soul duty
Led on the lofty strain.

Far in the distant years some thought came gleaming,
Along the hist'ry of this world's great life,

And quivering down from heart to heart its beaming
With glory still is rife.

O, blest the power such deeds of heavenly meetness
Το pour adown the tract of coming days,

And blest the thoughts that fall in living sweetness
Upon life's comır.on ways.

And glad the gathering when our time is ended,
Of all the influence that one life hath cast;

The souls that through such earnest words have tended
Upward to heaven at last.

MAN'S LIFE.

The reader will perceive that the following poem is built on the text prefixed, and that the first line of each stanzas is borrowed from it :

Behold, alas! our days we spend,
How vain they be, how soon they end.

BEHOLD,

How short a span

Was long enough of

To measure out the life of man; In those well tempered days, his time was then Surveyed, cast up, and found but three score years and

Before my pen can tell thee what,

The posts of time are swift, which having run, Their seven short stages o'er, their short-lived task is done

OUR DAYS
Begun, we lend

To sleep, to antic plays

And toys until the first stage ends,

Twelve waning moons twice five times told we give, To unrecovered loss; we rather breathe than live.

WE SPEND

A ten years breath
Before we apprehend

What 'tis to live or fear a death;

For childish dreams are filled with painted joys

Which please our sense awhile, and waking prove but

toys.

HOW VAIN,

How wretched is

Poor man that doth remain

A slave to such a state as this;

His days are short at longest; few at most; They are but hard at best; yet lavished out or lost.

THEY BE

The secret springs

That make our minutes flee

On wheels more swift than eagle's wings! Our life's a clock; and every gasp of breath Breathes forth a warning grief, till time shall strike a death.

HOW SOON

Our new-born light
Attains to full aged noon!

And this how soon to grey haired night! We spring, we bud, we blossom, and the blast, Ere we can count our days, our days they flee so fast.

THEY END

When scarce begun;
And ere we apprehend

That we begin to live, our life is done. Man count thy days; and if they fly too fast For thy dull thoughts to count, count every day the last.

TREASURES IN HEAVEN.

'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose our dear
Friends out of sight, in faith and love to muse
How grows in Paradise our richer store.

DOWN BY THE RIVER.

Madgy and Nellie and Kate and I
Wandered down by the river's side,
And watched the waving shadows fly,
Like gliding barks o'er its level tide.

And many a merry song was sung,
And many a joyous tale was told,
Till the air with our fitful laughter rung,
And echo replied from the forest old.

Memory tells me that they were fair—

Madge with her clustering nut-brown curls, And Nellie and Kate with their sunny hair, And lips like rosebuds and teeth like pearls..

Rocking to rest in their sweet content,

The birds their heaven-taught vespers sung.
And o'er our heads like a gorgeous tent,
The crimson curtains of sunset hung.

The lilies lifted their queenly heads,

And swayed with the current to and fro : And the wild flowers leaned o'er their grassy beds And gazed at themselves in the waves below.

Now, as then, on the level tide,

The crimson stains of the sunset lie;

But we roam no more by the river's side,
Madge and Nellie and Kate and I.

I

go alone to the churchyard gray,

Where three white stones stand side by side,

And memory carries my thoughts away

To the dismal day when our loved ones died.

Silently passed they one by one,

As stars fade out from the sky above In the glorious beams of the rising sun; Ah! death were then the end of love!